Claire Cottrell

The Humane Society “Bento”

Dove “Vicky & Jon”

Visa “Weekend”

Oreo “Roy Choi”

The Humane Society “Katie & Toast”

Motorola “Travel”

Dove “Julie & Zak”

Claire is an award-winning director and photographer.

Studies in architecture and design (B.Arch., M.L.Arch.) inspired an interest in human experience. She fell in love with visual storytelling in an undergraduate seminar that analyzed humanity and craft through film, literature and photography. ie. Julie Taymor, Vladamir Nabokov, Shakespeare. Her career in film began in graduate school. On the side, she worked as a research assistant to a number of celebrated directors. In those days being a research assistant to a director meant spending hours in shops like Arcana: Books on the Arts meticulously exploring extremely specific visual ideas like hard light on Japanese sidewalks or flickering television sets. After years of looking at books for a living she started putting her own ideas out in to the world. She worked briefly as an art director. The first thing she made was inducted into the archives of the Film Department at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. She worked on one other project to great fanfare for Apple and then transitioned to directing. This year, her work for The Humane Society was awarded a Cyber Lion at the Cannes International Festival for Creativity. Thanks to the project, pet adoption saw a dramatic increase. Not long after Claire directed the launch episodes of a new series starring fashion designer and ardent feminist Rachel Antonoff. She's also worked with PBS, American Express, Samsung, Motorola, Visa and Dove, among others.

Claire contributed principal photography to the much lauded cookbook, Everything I Want To Eat: Sqirl and the New California Cooking. The New York Times' Oliver Strand wrote: The book itself looks less like a cookbook than an exhibition catalog. The pages are tastefully spare, the images stark. There are full-page portraits of regular customers with the clothes and expressions that real people wear. It feels raw and direct, and it stands out at a time when some cookbooks can be overly precious or overly produced." In addition to exploring a thoughtful take on food, Claire regularly photographs architecture, design and women for publications including Bon Appétit, Architectural Digest and Domino. Her work has been featured in T: The New York Times Style Magazine, the Paris Review, Purple and Vogue.

All in all, Claire's interested in the simplicity of humanity's imperfect beauty - be it in film, food, fashion or design.